For your own sake, don’t politicize Ebola

Conservatives: Just because Obama is a liberal doesn’t mean none of his administration’s Ebola strategies make sense. If it were President Romney explaining why a flight ban won’t help anything, would you be so up in arms?

And since when is a crisis reason enough to abandon free market principles? Conservatives have always hated the CDC. Now they’re blaming Obama for proposing cuts to CDC’s budget back in 2011. They want CDC to do even more! It reminds me of post-9/11 (not that I remember that period…I’ve only read the history), when conservatives were all for war in Afghanistan, the TSA, the Patriot Act. Once Obama was elected, all those things became evil. This is why I rarely vote for Republicans, and didn’t in 2012. Once they’re in power, true free market principles in America virtually disappear!

I’m a free market guy. I like most conservatives. But using a virus that is killing thousands to score political points and attack Obama is pretty low. The reasons why a flight ban won’t work should, I think, make sense to anyone willing to consider the merits of the decision itself instead of criticizing the people making the decision.

This issue hits home for me. My wife is a nurse, and a suspected Ebola case showed up in her hospital late last week (this has been reported in the news…I’m not disclosing confidential information). If she’d had been asked to treat this patient, she’d have done it willingly. Then she’d have come home in the morning, knowing that sensible precautions were taken. Of course, even the best precautions won’t work 100 percent of the time. Thus the Dallas nurse infected last week. But to achieve any success at all, risks have to be taken. It’s vitally important that those risks be understood in light of the facts, not political grudges. If not, we risk putting people like my wife in danger.

For example, consider if a flight ban were mandated. Are hospitals to quit asking if a patient had come from west Africa? They might as well. What patient is going to admit having broken the law if they somehow breached the barricade? This puts Americans in more danger than they are now–nurses most of all.

Then imagine if a patient did admit to evading the flight ban. Mass hysteria would break out. No one with a West African (or probably any African) accent would be trusted. Perceptions of risk would be incalculable, as the number of recent visitors to west Africa in the United States would be unknown. The economy would suffer, and more harm would come to Americans than what would have come otherwise.

The choice is between calculable risk (no flight ban) and incalculable risk (flight ban). Use your brain and think about this. Forget that it’s Obama in power. Forget that the CDC Chief is a poor speaker. Consider the facts and think about the administration’s reasoning. Obama’s made tons of mistakes, but this isn’t one of them.